BERLIN: Samsung continues to roll out Android tablets, despite being subject to a number of patent infringement lawsuits from Apple, and V3 got its hands on the latest edition to the ever-growing Galaxy Tab family.

The Galaxy Tab 7.7in looks to be another fine effort from the Korean manufacturer, boasting some tasty specifications and a beautifully crafted, lightweight design.

Despite having a screen almost one inch larger than the HTC Flyer and BlackBerry PlayBook, the Galaxy Tab 7.7 weighs just 335g, making it around 100g lighter than its competitors. The Tab is great to hold and definitely has a decent claim to being the most portable tablet on the market.

Samsung will also retain the voice calling feature in 3G models, making this a hybrid device like the original Samsung Galaxy Tab.

The company has squeezed in a Super Amoled screen with 1,280x800 resolution. The screen is extremely crisp and its brightness marks a step up from the 1,024x600 pixels on the original Tab.

Samsung has ditched the commonly used context sensitive face buttons, and the Tab has no keys on the bezel.

As always, Samsung has increased the device's horsepower, incorporating a 1.4GHz dual-core processor. We found internet browsing swift, and applications loaded quickly. We expect the Tab 7.7 to be one of the fastest on the market when it comes out.

The tablet is also wafer thin and, with a thickness of 7.89mm, looks like a size zero model next to the Flyer (13.2mm) and makes the PlayBook (10mm) look a bit chubby.

The Tab runs on Android 3.2, so the experience is going to be similar to other tablets, but we did spot some features that we haven't seen before. The System Bar on the Tab 7.7 features a screen capture button to instantly print any page. There is also an extra arrow that brings up six shortcuts to apps along the bottom for quicker access.

The back of the device has also been changed, which we were happy to see. Gone is the white plastic back, which made the original very slippery to hold, to be replaced by a gun-metal grey metal casing.

In a nod to its ongoing battle with Apple, Samsung cheekily placed a sticker on the back stating that the "design is subject to change", almost as if the manufacturer is anticipating another lawsuit.

As it stands, we were very impressed with the 7.7in, even more so that the Sony Tablet S. The Galaxy Tab 7.7 looks like it is going to offer a large display without compromising portability, and it could be the best Android tablet to date.

BERLIN: V3 got some hands-on time with Sony's forthcoming Android tablets at the IFA show ahead of their launch in September.

Sony has been very secretive about the specifications, and this marks the first time that tablets running the Android Honeycomb operating system have been previewed. First up was iPad 2 rival the Sony Tablet S, which we were very impressed with.

The Tablet S comes with Android Honeycomb, so navigation was very familiar. The Apps menu is noticeably different from other Android devices, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, but Sony hasn't overdone the customisation, which is good.

The Tablet S is a thing of beauty, but we were unsure about the asymmetric design when looking at the tablet from afar. However, any fears were allayed when we picked it up.

It is very comfortable to hold and, at 598g, it's one of the lightest tablets on the market considering the large screen size. We also liked the handy cover for the SD card and micro USB connections.

Some of the unique features include infra-red connectivity and the ability to 'throw' content onto other Sony devices. So you can simply swipe a finger up and throw a video onto a connected TV or transfer music to wireless speakers, for example. This worked really well during our hands-on and allows Sony to offer a connected ecosystem.

The 1GHz processor made browsing and general responsiveness comparable to the Motorola Xoom. On the basis of our first impressions, the Tablet S looks like a solid effort from Sony. The only stumbling block so far appears to be the £499 price tag.

Our impressions of the Tablet P were not as favourable. It has similar specifications to the Tablet S, but the dual screen is not to our liking. The form factor also felt rather bulky, although it weighs just 372g and outdoes its sister in terms of portability.

Web browsing was a rather fragmented experience and we see the Tablet P functioning primarily as a PSP-style device.

However, the price is going to put many potential buyers off. The Tablet P could come to market at over £500 and, from what we've seen so far, Sony could find it difficult to shift a significant number of units if this is not reduced.

Nokia is due to launch another update for its ailing Symbian platform just days after releasing the Anna update for its high-end smartphones, including the N8.

The company has made a countdown clock available on its Facebook page, along with the cryptic message: "It's time to try something new."

Nokia is set to make the announcement in just over 45 hours, and the firm's Facebook followers appear to be convinced that the firm will launch Symbian Belle as it has been leaked onto YouTube.

The interface appears to have passing similarities with Nokia's forthcoming MeeGo operating system. It sports a drop down notifications bar as well as revamped keyboard and widgets.

Users can also expect enhanced customisation options, and there are suggestions that Nokia is gearing up to launch a new app store.

However, it would seem odd for Nokia to release two high-profile updates within a week, leading to speculation that a new handset could be unleashed.

"How can people say its Belle when Anna hasn't even been deployed fully around the world yet? I am guessing it might be a 3D Symbian phone announcement maybe," said Nokia customer Ben Liu on the Facebook page.

It remains to be seen whether this annoucement will help Symbian gain some momentum in the smartphone market. However, at least Nokia appears to be following through on its promise to support the platform until 2016, unlike HP which unceremoniously dumped its webOS platform after lacklustre smartphone and tablet sales.

Yammer has been touting its ever growing client list, so V3 thought it would test the enterprise social network for seven days to see how it compares to other collaboration and communication tools.

Day 1
Yammer's sign-up process is straightforward enough, requesting our user name, password, department name and company name. The system alerts us to the fact that other members of Incisive Media are already using Yammer, and we are asked to fill out a list of further people we think should be asked to join.

While filing out the list, Yammer notifies us that 31 people from Incisive Media have in some way shown interest in joining Yammer, but have still not activated their profiles. All we have to do to invite them is click on a button, so we do and invitations are immediately sent out telling them to get onboard.

After completing a good part of the sign-in and set-up process, we have a look at the company feed. Since we've just found out that many staff at Incisive Media already use Yammer, we are expecting to find an active feed, with colleagues broadcasting news to the rest of the company.

However, the feed is dead quiet. It is filled with automatic alerts informing us that different members of staff have joined the network, but no one has made any personal updates, except for one who has linked to a business intelligence story weeks ago, giving no reason why. The link has no responses.

The big question now is what do we say? What can we write in an update that will be of interest to this random selection of people we don't know, but who work in one of our company's many offices around the world?

None of them works in the Business Technology Group to which V3 belongs, so there's not much point in posting one of our breaking news stories. Neither do any of our company Yammer members seem to work in an editorial function, so talking about writing standards or an interesting issue like the phone hacking scandal could also go amiss.

We consider having a look for company information or news stories about Incisive Media to post in the feed, and see how that goes down with the staff on the network. The only problem is that our company is not in the news at the moment.

We decide to leave the updates for the time being, and finish completing our profile. We can choose people in our company we want to follow. We follow all the people whose names we faintly recognise, although a quick look at their profiles shows that none of them has been active on the network for months.

Then the profile page asks for some personal information, like the name of our significant other and whether we have kids. But do we really want all our colleagues knowing such details? Is having kids the best way to get yourself recognised by senior executives? We decide to leave that for the time being.

We go back to the company feed and write: "Anyone have any ideas on how this network can be used internally? It seems a lot of people have joined but no one has made any updates."

Then we decide to sign off, but that is not the end of Yammer's interaction with us for the day. The network sends us an email around 4pm, rounding up all Yammer activity that has taken place during the day. We are told that a number of people have accepted our invitations to join. That is good, we think, as it should mean more interaction tomorrow.

Day 2
In response to our one post yesterday, a marketing executive from somewhere in the company, who had accepted our invitation to join Yammer, had written: "Was talking to my manager about rolling out a Yammer site for Incisive, totally unaware this was already in existence. It has the potential to be a great tool, but without people knowing it exists or it generating content, it's a bit redundant."

True, we think. We decide we need more people on Yammer with whom we can actually benefit from sharing content. We decide to set up a V3 group on Yammer and invite all our editorial team members to join. The team normally uses Google Chat or Skype to discuss breaking news, but we manage to persuade them to use Yammer for the day, for the sake of our review.

We comment in the group on a few news stories that have broken in the past few hours. However, we find that scrolling away from the V3 group page to check the company feed temporarily erases all our updates to the group page. The updates to the group page also take a while to come through to the feed. One member of our team announces that he does not want to use Yammer because it "isn't real time".

We move back to Skype and Google Mail.

Day 7
The past five days were spent just watching more people join the Incisive Media network, but say nothing. Only one member of staff made an update about some mobile application being trialled in one of our company departments. The V3 group never took off.

The company feed remains quiet as the updates made by staff are hardly engaging, and do not encourage responses. It is also daunting knowing that so many of our colleagues are sitting there watching the live feed - or not as the case may be - but are not in any way participating,

We do not doubt that Yammer is of great use to many influential companies, but we have learned that it can take a while to get a business onboard and to realise its benefits. We also found that the free version takes a while to update, which can pose a problem if Yammer is being used by a group that needs an instant method of communication.

Twitter has announced a series of updates to be rolled out in the coming weeks designed to provide more information on account activity akin to the Facebook feed.

The first update will see the @mentions column change to @yourname (e.g. @V3_co_uk) to include information about @ replies and updates that the user has posted which have been 'favourited', as well as retweets of messages and recent new followers.

The second update will see a new tab labelled 'Activity' that will show information on the interactions of other users on the site, including who they've followed, messages they've retweeted and messages they've 'favourited'.

The updates will bring more of a Facebook feel to the site by providing a constant stream of information relating to the user and the accounts of other users as Twitter continues to add new functionality.

The company confirmed on Tuesday that users can now directly upload photos to the site, rather than having to use a third-party client such as TwitPic.

V3 recently listed our favourite 100 Twitter users in 10 categories, including security experts, celebrities, comedians and MPs, which you can find under our dedicated Top 100 Technology Tweeters tag.

Twitter has begun rolling out an image uploading service after announcing the feature at the D9 Conference in San Francisco in June.

Users will now be able to upload photos directly from Twitter, rather than using third-party services.

Just as tweets are restricted to 140 characters, the photos will be limited to 3MB.

Depending on the size of the photo, it will take up a chunk of a user's 140-character tweet and, once posted, will be scaled to fit the display pane on the right of the Twitter timeline.

The big question is whether this new service will spell the end for TwitPic, which has run a photo-sharing service for Twitter users since 2008, and turned down a $10m acquisition offer two years ago.

Twitter's photo sharing service is pretty easy to use. Underneath the message box, users will see a camera icon, next to the compass icon, where they can upload photos from the device they are using.

A thumbnail of the image will appear in the lower left corner of the message box, and the character count will decrease according to the picture's size.

Twitter said that it will add a media gallery function in the coming weeks to show images that have been shared from Twitter's new image upload service or from third-party photo sharing services.

Apple unleashed the latest version of OS X Lion to the masses a little over two weeks ago, introducing a number of key features in the process. V3 has had a chance to get to grips with Lion on Apple's 11in MacBook Air and we've picked out some of the key features that will help you to get the most out of your Mac.

1. Use swiping gestures with multiple desktops
The trackpad has been redefined, allowing a number of swiping gestures using two and three fingers.

Scrolling and pinch-to-zoom are welcome features, and work remarkably well on the trackpad. However, we've found the most useful gesture to be the three-fingered horizontal swipe that allows you to navigate between full screen applications. A nifty way to use this is to create multiple desktops, which you can then cycle between.

To do this, you simply bring up Mission Control, add another desktop by hovering the mouse over the top right hand corner and then populate that desktop with specific apps. You can then keep internet windows in one desktop, word documents in the second, mail in the third and handily cross-reference between them with a single swipe.

2. Use Thunderbolt to transport data
Apple has been heavily promoting this feature over the past few months and it's now usable in the latest Mac devices. Thunderbolt allows high-speed transfer between two Apple Mac devices. We were able to use the port to transfer data from a MacBook Air to a Mac Mini.

To do this we had to set up the MacBook as an external hard drive by activating Target Disk Mode.

This was done by connecting the Thunderbolt cable and holding down the letter 'T' when booting up the Air. The Thunderbolt icon displayed on the screen of the MacBook and the device appeared as an external hard drive on the host - in this case the Mac Mini.

To give you an idea of Thunderbolt's speed, we transferred a 1.27GB file between Macs in just under two minutes. The same transfer took 15 minutes to load onto a USB stick and around 50 minutes to complete via AirDrop.

3. Sync revamped Mail app with Outlook
Apple has revamped its Mail feature, and the application now mirrors the iPad two-column interface. We like the conversation-style thread, which separates messages cleanly, and the full screen view.

However, the best feature by far is the dynamic search which automatically brings up suggestions when you start typing in a person's name or subject. This makes searching painless as relevant messages are instantly displayed. Finding the right email is considerably faster than using the search in traditional Outlook and Lotus Notes clients.

V3 also managed to synchronise corporate email from an Exchange 2003 server within the native Mail app. This was done by setting up an email account and choosing 'IMAP' as the account type. We then entered the IP address of the Incoming Mail Server, along with our username and password.

Alternatively, it is possible to download apps such as Mail Access 2003 from the Mac Store to get comprehensive functionality.

4. Multi-user screen sharing
Screen Sharing has been improved and now enables remote log-in to a separate account on another Mac.

Benefits include allowing IT admins to remotely troubleshoot problems and carry out upgrades without causing disruption. Business customers can also use the feature to work independently when using the same machine.

Screen Sharing still needs some tweaks, and browsing the web using the virtual desktop can be a bit ropey. But, for business users, it's good to know there is a tool available with which files on a Mac can be accessed in case there is an emergency.

   
5. Use the Apple Mac App Store
Although this has been out since January, the Mac App Store will prove a key feature for those using Apple's portable devices as they lack DVD drives. It's possible to get key software from the App Store, including vast numbers of productivity apps, and the importance of this store is only likely to increase as Apple puts more emphasis on cloud storage with the launch of iCloud.

 
6. Airdrop
This makes it possible to share files even when there is no Wi-Fi present.  A Mac will automatically locate any other AirDrop-capable device within 30 feet and allow an encrypted file transfer between them.

7. Resume
One thing that has always separated Macs from PCs is the impressive boot time. Apple has now added a 'Resume' feature which means that the Mac will automatically re-open all apps that were being used in the last session. This has been very useful as it allowed us to pick up right where we left off numerous times.

8. Autosave
Another invaluable feature that automatically saves files every five minutes, giving that extra piece of mind.

9. Mission Control
Among the noticeable visual tweaks are the Mission Control and Launchpad interfaces. Mission Control can be brought up by swiping three fingers upwards, and shows a bird's eye view of all applications being used on a particular desktop.

Windows from the same application are automatically grouped together, allowing you to keep track of what can otherwise become a crowded desktop. This is a great way of checking exactly what is running, particularly for those who may forget that they have left an app running in the background which they no longer need.

10. Launchpad
Apple has also brought the highly acclaimed iOS interface to the Mac for the first time. This shows applications in icon format, providing a quick way of accessing applications that are not stored in the dock.

It's possible to create folders, just like on the iPhone 4 or iPad 2, and anything downloaded from the Mac App Store will be located here.

RIM has not released any high-end smartphones for the best part of a year, and is aiming to make up lost ground by launching three major handsets from the end of August.

V3 got some precious hands-on time with the Bold 9900, Torch 2 and Torch 9860 and, judging by first impressions, RIM looks to be back on track after an unsteady start to 2011.

RIM was particularly keen to show off the Bold Touch, which is a significant improvement over previous models in the range. Although the Touch retains the familiar candy bar form factor, numerous changes have been made to the design.

The Touch weighs in at 110g and is just 10.5mm thick, making it RIM's thinnest device to date. Premium materials have been used to craft the 9900, and it really shows. The high-end look is perfectly illustrated by the distinctive stainless steel frame and the space age back cover. This is definitely the best looking RIM device to date.

As the name suggests, the Bold Touch will be the first in the range to have touch-screen functionality. This allows users to touch applications to open them, swipe between home screens, as well as scroll and pinch-to-zoom when viewing web pages.

The responsiveness of the touch screen was impressive, but it remains to be seen how well touch input will actually work on a display that is only 2.8in in size.

RIM has always had one of the best Qwerty keyboards on the market, and the firm has made the letters on the Touch a little bit bigger and reduced the annoying clicking sound. Another impressive feature is browsing, which RIM claims is 40 per cent faster. Anyone who has used a Bold will know that web pages can take an age to load over 3G, so this is an overdue  improvement.

The Bold 9900 will ship with a 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, 768MB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. However, as the majority of smartphones now ship with dual-core processors and at least 1GB of RAM, RIM needs to improve in this area, much like HTC.


Meanwhile, we found the 3.7in Torch 9860 intriguing, although it is unlikely to make a significant dent in sales of the iPhone and high-end Android devices. Design-wise it is similar to the Google Nexus S, as it has a curved back.

RIM also showcased the BlackBerry Torch 2, which is more of a standard refresh. RIM has doubled the power of the handset and loaded BlackBerry 7 OS.

V3 will post full reviews of the BlackBerry Bold Touch 9900, Torch 2 and Torch 9860 soon.

A video demonstration of the Bold Touch is below: